of staff goes swayback when he was an aide to tip o'neill in the 1980's. he was appalled at the speaker will not call the president back and made the point internally at the white house that when ronald reagan called, the phone call was immediately returned. boehner's argument was that he had to put together a congressional deal. he thought it would affect the financial markets. that is his excuse. president said, "why didn't he just call and say, i am working on it." it was the silence that offended the president and the white house staff. boehner did call and said he was backing out. one of the aides who work with them for years said he was spewing coals like a furnace in the oval office that day. the worry was the president was so furious when he was on the phone that he would literally break the phone. scott pelley asked if he was in a phone-breaking mood. the president said he was very angry. host: you write about it lack of deference on the democratic side, too. why do you think that is? guest: a lot has to do with harry reid, who goes to a meeting with the president on a sunday n

in the early 70's, he had an african-american woman added to this committee. the chairman added just one seat to the committee room. he forced the two of them to share it. he was unfazed. he said "let's not give these guys the luxury of getting under our skin. let's share this chair as it is the most normal thing in the world." since its earliest days, this caucus has been taking on challenges and leading the way in the urgent work of protecting our unions, fighting for jobs and health care, working to get all our children opportunities or the of their promise. it earned in the proud distinction of the conscious of conagra's. back when our grandparents were writing that underground railroad, when jim clyburn was sitting in an orange jail, the injustices we face were written in big letters. while we may have had our differences over strategy, the battles we needed to fight were very clear. we knew that to end slavery we needed a proclamation from our president and an amendment to our constitution. it to end segregation, we needed the congress to overturn the lie of separate but equal. we need

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